Longtime Democratic strategist Pat Caddell on Wednesday blasted the Obama White House for creating “a world in which there is no dissent,” following his banishment from Colorado Democrat Andrew Romanoff’s campaign for Senate.

Caddell, in a phone interview with The Daily Caller, doubled down on the comments he made in November that he said public sector employee unions in Colorado used as leverage to get him tossed from the Romanoff campaign.

“What I said about Andy Stern and the SEIU? Sure, they’re thugs,” said Caddell, a former adviser to President Jimmy Carter, who until Monday* had an informal advising role with the primary challenger to incumbent Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet.

Caddell said he does not fault Romanoff, a former state House speaker, for cutting ties with him after his remarks from November — in which he called the Service Employee Union International (SEIU) “thugs” and said the goal of the environmental movement is to “deconstruct capitalism” — were made public.

But Caddell said the comments were pushed into the public spotlight by the state chapters of the SEIU and the AFL-CIO, who called on the Romanoff campaign to get rid of him or risk losing any chance of getting labor’s endorsement.

“The unions have been considering endorsing Romanoff, and basically they told him that if I was involved with the campaign, ‘sayonara,’ which I think is the definition of thuggery isn’t it?” said Caddell, who has worked for a who’s who of Democratic politicians over the last few decades, including Ted Kennedy, George McGovern, Mario Cuomo and Gary Hart.

Mike Cerbo, the executive director of the Colorado AFL-CIO, said he called Romanoff after hearing of Caddell’s comments but denied applying pressure on the candidate to get rid of his adviser.

“There was no gauntlet thrown down,” Cerbo said. “I called Andrew just to express my displeasure. That was it. There were no threats or demands.”

The AFL-CIO has not yet endorsed a candidate in the Colorado primary, which is Aug. 10.

“We’ve got our political convention coming up in the late spring. And we’re moving forward with our process,” Cerbo said.

Romanoff spokesman Dean Toda said the candidate is still seeking the unions’ endorsements.

The SEIU has not responded to requests for comment. Neither has the Bennet campaign.

Caddell’s larger point is that Obama has allowed the Democratic party to be run by special interests such as the SEIU, and that the White House itself has reinforced the idea that no disagreement with their policies or ideas can be expressed.

“What they have created is a world in which there is no dissent. Don’t look at me. Look at [Sen.] Evan Bayh. People, with some justification, may think that I’m crazy. But he is the center of the establishment if there was ever was someone,” Caddell said. “When there’s no room in the Democratic party for him and there’s no room in the Democratic party for me, and the unions do get to make those kinds of calls in defense of the indefensible, because, ‘We own you,’ well, the Democratic party will be finished.”

Caddell said he is being ostracized for sounding alarms about the problem that public sector unions are posing for the Democratic party. He said he supports industrial unions but that government employee unions such as the SEIU — which is one of the Democratic party’s biggest campaign contributors — violate the raison d’etre of the party, which is to “stand up for ordinary average Americans, not money and special interests.”

“I think the public unions are going to take the country and the Democratic party down the tubes,” Caddell said. “They’re in the business of taking care of — of asking taxpayers, asking ordinary people, to pay for people who make twice as much as they make, with benefit packages they will never see, and they’re told, you may not cut those.”

He pointed to health-care negotiations, where the SEIU has preserved health-care benefits from cuts, and to the $787 billion stimulus, which has benefited mostly state government employees so far. He said public sector employee unions in California have contributed to the state’s fiscal crisis by demanding that taxpayers subsidize their job status and guaranteed salaries and benefits.

Caddell said he was not attacking government employees but that the system “has grown into something far beyond what it should be.”

“How are you going to tell a person who makes $40,000 that they must pay money to make sure that people keep jobs who make $80,000, roughly, and who have defined pensions that they will never see?” Caddell said. “You cannot ask ordinary Americans who have no jobs, whose pensions have been ransacked, and whose pay has been stagnant, to keep rewarding people who don’t face the same kind of conditions and risk.”

“The people who pay for it are suffering,” he said. “The taxpayers are going to explode. This is the big coming issue of our time.”

Open thread! Finally we can all stop bitching about going "off-topic"! LOL

Did anyone see this one? Seems the UAW doesn't want to hire union workers. Maybe Obama is secretly working against the unions. He put them in charge of GM and Chrysler, knowing that if they ever had to make a company profitable they would have to stop hiring union workers?

http://www.moonbattery.com/archives/2010/02/the-uaws-animal.html

The UAW's Animal Farmby Gregory of Yardale

Is the UAW seeking to keep new hires at the companies it now owns non-union? Mickey Kaus thinks... maybe. Now that the UAW owns 60% of General Motors, all of a sudden, they have an incentive to make the company profitable; even if it means hiring non-union workers at lower wages.

George Orwell sort of saw this coming.

"No question, now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which."

Does the UAW Even Want More Members?Is This How Unions Die? News that workers at the plant making batteries for the new Chevy Volt might not be union (UAW) members provoked this wacky, largely uninformed thought: Maybe the UAW doesn't really want the future Chevy workers to be unionized. Why? Because the UAW has basically cut a deal with GM that protects its existing members in their $28 an hour (plus benefits) jobs, but give new, future hires a much worse deal: $15 an hour jobs. If those new workers are UAW members, they will be able to lobby within the union (and, more significantly, vote) to equalize the pay of the old-timers and newcomers at some intermediate level-- say $22 an hour. Why would existing UAW members want that? Better to keep the newbies out and exploit them for all they are worth in order to subsidize the cushy, unsustainable deal the UAW veterans enjoy. ... It would almost be as if the existing UAW members had become the profit-seeking owners of the company! ... Oh wait. .... P.S.: Could this be one model for the demise of other unions? "Grandfather" (and thereby buy off) the dwindling number of existing members, and finance this by squeezing the maximum from new hires while excluding them from the union (perhaps by hiring them through subcontractors). The union becomes just another quasi-shareholder representing a limited number of old-time members. Eventually, as those members retire and expire, the union ceases to exist. ...

Biden in Michigan Bragged About All Jobs Saved By Stimulus! He Just Forgot to Mentioned the 200,000 JObs LOST in 2009 in Michigan Oops!

Government Has SPENT 1.3 Trillion Dollars MORE Than it Will Take in Through TAXES! Hows That For Fiscal Reform! The COMMISION NOBAMA is Implementing is Going to Study Among Other Things Jobs! Are Not these Members of this Commision Members of the CONGRESS! Why in The Hell Do WE Need a COMMISION,Just Congress DO Your DAM Job How Simple! Getting Republicans Finally Involved AFTER The Mess This Administration CAUSE is Just Another Blame Game and Photo OP Down The Road. CONGRESS Your the ONES Who Pass BUDGETS, ONCE Again DO Your Dam JOBS or Come NOVEMBER YOU POLITICAL Hacks WILL Be REPLACED!

Divided they fall. The UAW has been divided. Things will get bad for the UAW members once the union is busted. We had temps that made $14 hr. They were treated as 2nd class citizens even though they worked much harder then the rest of us. JoeC knows what I'm talking about.

The Commision the President is Forming Regarding DEFICT, Will Have 16 Memebers with Four Being Republicans! The Report is do Back in December!

Wonder if there Conclusionb Will Be TAX HIKES for MOST Citizens. Maybe Even a Value Added Tax Which Will,NO Matter What Your Wages Effect You! Deficit Can Only Be Paid With TAX Increases! Alot of Those Politicans MAY Be Retired in NOVEMBER and Then What,Have Another Commision Debate for Several Months and Then What! Most Citizens WITHOUT COMMISION Have Figured It Out, You CANNOT Spend MORE Than You MAKE!

This is not even believable to me. They have spent more money then ever before. It doesn't take a Harvard lawyer to figure out that they spend too much. It's all a show. And I voted for President Obama. He better give us the change we asked for or he will be a 1 termer.

When Nobamas Done All That will BE Left is Change! No More Cash, China and other Forgein Countries Will Have it!

Now Administration is Concerned About Spending! Thats Like Shutting the Barn Door After the Horses Got OUT!

Hows That On The Job Training Working Out! Should Not Be a Surprize. When Nobama in Senate He Was A Spender of TAX PAYERS Money and Then Voters Gave Him the Key to The VAULT and POOF All GONE!

No Doubt He Did Inherit a Large Deficit BUT HES Doubled It in 13 Months! Spending to Create What JOBS? Where Are They? Blaming BUSH for This Administrations MISTAKES Are Playing THIN with Citizens! Leaders Lead,the Rest Point Fingers!

About Me

I like to Hunt,Fish,Play with my two boys,Garden,Bonsai and Learn.I used to live in Japan and miss it.I have two young boys 12 and 8 yrs. old. I've been married for over 15years. I have a greenhouse and an organic garden. We have 2 cats,one puggle and fish.